Displaying items by tag: Attack

Recently a SolarWinds Web Help Desk client reported an attempted attack on their externally facing Web Help Desk instance. The attack was caught by their EDR system which was able to block the attempt. However, the reported attack, after a review, has caused concern with SolarWinds who is now advising their customers to remove public access to avoid possible compromise.

The targeting of travelers is something that is a very old idea. To the would-be attacker you are getting a target that is not familiar with their surroundings and (in many cases) has a lot of money on them. In the “old days” the target was the cash they brought with them. This quickly changed to a number of scams to get access to their credit card numbers and the cash that they protected. Still the idea was to go after the traveler because they were easy targets when they were out and about.

It is always a bad day when you find out there is a problem. Even if it is as simple as your coffee pot not working (ok bad choice for many). Things are made worse when you find out it is a problem that just cannot easily be fixed or worked around. This is the case in a new Android based vulnerability that was discovered by Blue Box Security (the same guys that found the Master Key issue) a few months ago.

Are you still sure that you want to sign up for that online service? Well you might want to think twice considering recent news. Last year we watched as Blizzard, LastFM, LinkedIn and others had their security breached and user information stolen. Now there is another online service that has had their security broken and their users’ information exposed to attackers. The online deals site LivingSocial fell victim to a cyber-attack that left over 50 Million (yes 50 Million) users’ data exposed.

As we see an even bigger push to cloud services there is also an interesting increase in online attacks. According to numbers from security firms the number of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack have skyrocketed in Q1 of 2013. This increase in number of attack has also been accompanied by an increase in power and sophistication. In particular a recent attack on Spamhaus topped 130Gbps which is an almost unheard of number when talking about this type of attack.

Wow, who would have thought that a site like The Pirate Bay would ever be taken down by a DDoS attack (Distributed Denial of Service), but that is exactly what it looks like is happening to the world famous torrent listing site. What makes the situation interesting is thinking about who might be behind the attack and, of course why? So let’s walk through a few likely scenarios and a few that are a little off the deep end.